What Does A “Frivolous” Challenge Look Like?

The buzz word on day one of Minnesota’s Gubernatorial recount is “frivolous”. Changes in state election law give election judges the power to label ballot challenges as “frivolous” which the recount rules from the State Canvassing Board define as:

“A challenge is frivolous if it is based upon an alleged identifying mark other than a signature or an identification number written anywhere on the ballot or a name written on the ballot completely outside of the space for the name of a write-in candidate. The absence of election judge initials on a ballot cannot be the basis of a challenge.”

In Hennepin County Monday there were 150 frivolous challenges according to County Elections Manager Rachel Smith. 95% of those she said came from the Tom Emmer campaign. The Dayton campaign says that as of 2:30pm Monday there had been 226 frivolous challenges statewide. 221 of them were from the Emmer campaign. 107 of them were from the relatively small county of Renville.

By the way, the statute that prohibits “identifying marks” dates back to the days when some folks were apparently paid to vote for a candidate and the way they proved it was by marking the ballot in a way that someone could tell they were the ones who voted for that candidate.

The Emmer campaign’s claim that this ballot had an identifying mark and should not be counted was rejected by the election judge as “frivolous”

The challenge on this ballot says it’s not a vote for Dayton, calling it an “undervote” presumably because the voter didn’t color completely inside the circle and missed a little bit of it.

Emmer campaign’s claim, that this is not a vote for Dayton was rejected by the election judge as frivolous.

The Emmer campaign claims this ballot contains an “identifying mark” and should not be counted for Dayton.

The Emmer campaign’s claim that this ballot had an identifying mark and should not be counted was rejected by the election judge as “frivolous”

The Emmer campaign’s claim that this ballot had an identifying mark and should not be counted was rejected by the election judge as “frivolous”

The Emmer campaign said this ballot had “identifying marks”. Election Judge said the claim was frivolous.

You can only vote for one team. But this voter chose two. Emmer campaign says it was supposed to be a vote for them. Rejected as frivolous challenge.

The entire ballot had this combination of check and oval fill in. Emmer campaign said it shouldn’t be counted as a vote for Dayton. Election Judge disagreed.

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Michael McIntee is a former network TV news executive with more than 30 years of broadcasting experience. He began his broadcasting career at the University of Minnesota's student radio station. He is an expert producer, writer, video editor who has a fondness for new technology but denies that he is a geek. More about Michael McIntee »

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Ken Martin, who served as Minnesota Governor-elect Mark Dayton's recount director, announced today that he will run for the Democratic-Farm-Labor chairmanship. Current DFL chair Brian Melendez announced last week that he will not seek a fourth two-year term, following the party's loss of the state house and senate in the Nov. 2 election.

Wisconsin completed its recount 24 hours earlier than anticipated, but delivered the same result as anticipated — Donald Trump won the state by 22,748 votes. However, it exposed some problems in Wisconsin's election system.

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